I apologise in advance if something like this has been asked before... cut a newbie some slack?

I was just wondering of all Australians on the board... how are you getting your hands on Trials & Tribulations? As tempted as I am to hop on to play-asia to get the Japanese version, I think I'd prefer a manual etc in English so will have to get the American release. I'm not familiar with any services that ship overseas or take international pre-orders.... can anybody recommend where to get it?

Heh, being a tool, I went to my local EB games to ask them if I could preorder it, and the guy was all flustered. "Uhhh, but the second one hasn't been released yet!"
I forgot that Australia really is down the bottom of the earth.

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That sucks. I may not be Australian, but I wish I could help in anyway to get the games down to Austalia. BTW, If you are looking for how to order GS3 or GS4, Go to the Goods section of CR and buy it on the linked site.

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Thanks for the tip... I couldn't find any links to American stores on the goods page but it looks like gamestop will ship to Australia. Hooray!!! :D

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Seems releases in Australia sucks even more than in Europe.

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They really do. The only advantage is that we're slightly closer to Japan. :3

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Most Australian release dates suck. The worst bit is when after waiting months for a DS game, they send down the US version, still with the "for sale in the USA only" on the back.
Like my copy of Trauma Center... brr...
But, I'm just gonna import the japanese version, kupo.

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I never understood why Australians can't just use the NTSC version of video-games. I mean, you're not going to need all the languages that Europe and other PAL nations will be using.

... Unless of course color vs. colour is a punishable offense, in which case I humbly retract my comment.

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I imported the first game from Japan, before it was even out in the US, because I was so excited for it - yes, I was one of the first outside of Japan to begin the Phoenix Wright craze. >_> I bought JFA in America in January. I'll be importing the US version of TaT from Play-Asia, to make sure I'm still supporting US sales.

I think Australia is a PAL nation, based off an incident with Animal Crossing back in 2004.

What I want to know is: Why do they have such difficulty with early release dates in comparison to the US and Europe? >_>

Console games are a pain in the ass over here because we use PAL and because companies like Nintendo aren't nice enough to make their consoles region free. So we have to wait for the European PAL versions, meaning we wait for translations into five languages which nobody here speaks. Plus the random extra few months that seem to amount from pure ****ing laziness, like how Super Paper Mario is coming out in SEPTEMBER, five months later, even though there's no goddamn way it should take that long.

Handheld games sometimes follow this trend and sometimes don't. With the DS, we've actually gotten many games BEFORE Europe - sometimes months before, sometimes immediately or not too long after the US release. That tends to just be first party games, though. Most third parties can't be ****ed and still only give us the European versions.

As for Phoenix Wright in particular, I have no idea. They were just lazy releasing that one here. I think we were originally meant to get it early 2006, and it was cancelled, then it really was released earlier this year, and now JFA is coming out this year as well. Australian gamers really suck, though, and most people here never buy anything unique or weird or quirky, so I don't know how well it's selling.

Thank you very much for the explanation, Impossible.

Yes, I know that Australia is a PAL nation, that's why I was wondering why they can't use the NTSC version, aside from some grammar, there's nothing in it I think they'd find unacceptable.

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That's true. It does indeed beg the question, 'why not import the games from the US?'

T&T may have been delayed, but that's not a problem if you're planning on buying the Japanese version. Personally, I wouldn't mind having a manual I couldn't read if it meant I got to play a great game sooner. Plus, there's an English language option in the Japanese game. So why not just import the games you want?

AUS is a PAL region, as well as Europe. I'm importing from Japan, also, but the US version of JFA kind of drove me mad. *laughs* Grammar, grammar and more grammar, slight spellings, things that really get me, even on the internet.

I remember the fuss over Animal Crossing. I don't think it ever came out over here or even, when it did, everyone had imported anyway!

Australia is a PAL nation, and Region 4 (I believe we can also play R2 stuff in DVD players also). Blu-Ray's regioning puts us in with the UK and Europe, R2. We've been on whatever England has had since the technology became available. This is because of legislation introduced when Australia became it's own nation on January 1st, 1901 (and originally applied to books).

/history lesson

None of that applies to the DS though - its region free. I don't know why the heck we didn't just get England's stock of PW:AA and PW:JFA. The second game is only just coming out here. The release times are absolutely RIDICULOUS when it comes to smaller titles. Only the huge stuff (like Halo 3) will get released at the same time as everywhere else. This is because Australia is a tiny nation. Because it's little (compared to somewhere like, say, the US) its video-game playing citizens get jacked in pretty much all departments when it comes to video games, mostly because we're in the middle of nowhere, and small (21 million people nationwide, which is about how many people live in CA). We didn't get a lot of titles throughout every console generation (Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Xenogears, Chrono Crusade, Xenosaga1, Katamari Damacy) and to be honest I am actually surprised that Phoenix Wright has been selling at ALL in Australia. And as I said before, JFA is still just coming out, will be released in a few more weeks.

Not even Pokemon Diamond/Pearl was spared from crappy release dating. We finally got it on June 21st, as opposed to America getting it mid-April.


To actually answer the topic question, I'm importing GS3 for the DS from a dude on eBay who lives in Singapore. Only 8 more days to go! (and then waiting for that blasted shipping time... arrrr).

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